Camelia Pasandaran, Jakarta – Not one to shy away from issuing controversial statements, Constitutional Court Chief Mahfud MD has said the court had yet to deal with an election dispute filed this year in which the incumbent politician had been found waging a fair fight.

Mahfud said that in all of the more than 190 election disputes filed with the Constitutional Court this year, the court had found evidence that the incumbents had violated a host of existing regulations to remain in power.

"In more than 190 cases [filed this year], all incumbents have cheated, particularly through the abuse of their current positions," Mahfud said recently during a consultative session with lawmakers at the House of Representatives.

Mahfud said, however, that what was difficult to prove was that incumbents were cheating through the use of money politics during election campaigns, which resulted in the court rejecting requests to annul election results.

"Even the losers could be involved in money politics but this is hard to prove. The winner will of course stay silent, and the loser will report the winner to court," Mahfud said, adding there were only a very limited number of cases where solid proof could point to election violations being conducted structurally, systematically and in a massive manner. Only in these cases would the court call for an annulment of results and order a new vote.

A total of 244 regional elections were held at district and provincial levels nationwide this year. Of these, election disputes were filed at the Constitutional Court in connection with at least 191 of them.

Reydonnyzar Moenek, a spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs, supported Mahfud's comments. "That all incumbents cheat is a fact," Reydonnyzar told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.

"Whether it is the KPU [General Elections Commission] or the Bawaslu [Elections Supervisory Board], both have problems dealing with this issue," he said. "They should play a more active role in eradicating cheating violations."

Reydonnyzar said the ministry had sent letters to all incumbents earlier this year telling them not to use state facilities or abuse their positions in order to win re-election this year.

"We even asked the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission] and the BPK [Supreme Audit Agency] to study regional budgets to discover whether or not there is a possibility that they could be used by incumbents for re-election purposes."

He admitted, however, that it was no easy task supervising sitting district heads, mayors and governors because the political parties supporting them would not hesitate to mobilize masses by taking advantage of the position of the incumbent.

"Once again, it is actually the job of Panwas [Elections Supervisory Committees] and the KPU to monitor these violations. But we all know that the KPU can be partial sometimes.

"There are also problems when it comes to election mechanisms that have yet to be resolved." He said the blame must be shared by the various election supervisory bodies.